Harvesting radio waves to power Linux (a brainstorm)

There are little electronic kits for children and I got one as a kid. Remember the AM radio? You clip little wires in the little slinky holders and there's an antenna, a crystal, a tuner and earpiece.

In recent years I was thunderstruck to review that, and there's no battery! Seriously, the radio energy is strong enough to be captured by the antenna, get tuned and drive a coil so hard the diaphragm vibrates loud enough for your ear to hear.

When I first realized that years ago, the thought naturally occurred to me that all of the radio waves going on at once, coupled with the human head's lack if EMI or RF shielding, maybe that could be a factor in problems people have. I got over that tangent because you'd have to go to Antarctica to test it and it already takes a odd brain to want to go there... moving right along...

But with the little Linux devices running on such low power, I thought to ask how many antennas would it take to harvest so many frequencies it could power a tiny Pi or similar computer?

I thought I've only asked this at an audio forum and there were people who claimed there's a science called something like energy harvesting. But it maybe makes sense, especially considering how valuable low-powered devices can benefit etc.

Got that off my chest and apologies if I've mentioned it before, but I'm not through with that subject and I'd love to hear thoughts if I could persuade your unshielded brain to action LOL

bodhi Wrote:
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> Joey,
>
> May be potatoes is a better choice than radio wave
> ;)

Gravelrash Wrote:
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> I would use lemons

We might have more fun making Absolut Citron out of those ingredients! LOL I was a bellboy at a major island hotel one year and went door to door at employee housing giving everyone 2 shots of that; they couldn't stop at one... ahem, moving right along...

I guess my idealist idea is not terribly practical, not that I really knew how much electricity was transferable. But that would be nice to get at least one benefit off all that talk radio I so loathe... still makes me wonder if one antenna can still get the juice off all the stations at once? I'm in a small town but that's still maybe 30 stations across the dial.

Maybe they could all charge a hearing aid battery that only plays the emergency alert tone...

Well gents, that was (or is) fun, and a great link Gravelrash, now in my template browser bookmarks!

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